Thursday, January 11, 2007

Re:Post (Suppleness)

I believe this was one of the first posts I ever put on this blog, but I still find this selection from the Tao te Ching fascinating and meaningful and, since I just found it again, I wish to repost:

Men are born soft and supple;
dead, they are stiff and hard.
Plants are born tender and pliant;
dead, they are brittle and dry.

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible
is a disciple of death.
Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken.
The soft and supple will prevail.

[Tao te Ching, #76]

6 comments:

anonymous julie said...

whoa, super cool!

Kevin Beck said...

The Colts defense was strong and supple. They prevailed. Congrats

They call him James Ure said...

The Tao Te Ching is so beautiful. It is one of my favorite spiritual texts. I refer to it often as well.

Namaste.

Trevor Harden said...

Julie... um, thanks, wrote it myself. :)

Kevin - ROCK! Thanks.

James - Namaste...

isaiah said...

Trev,

Looking back on first posts, early writings and influences...this quote fits you, your personality and gives a good indication as to who Trev Diesel is and what his blog is about.

Interesting how my second post to my blog a couple of years ago caught your attention and resulted in our friendship as well as a meeting with many more like-minded souls who are now friends.

It isn't in our nature as civilized Westerners to rest comfortably with being labeled "soft", or "supple."
But, it is our very essence: we are born soft and supple and we are taught ways resulting in our inflexibility, stiffness, leading to our unbending-ness.

Perhaps we need to break, to snap in the wind to learn more and more of the full truth of our being. Sometimes the lesson learned the hard way- at least for me- is more useful.

Trevor Harden said...

Tom-

Ya, man. Thanks for this feedback. It's certainly not the western way to be flexible and flowing. Especially as a male. Yet, this passage is right on.

Maybe we do need to learn "the hard way" sometimes.

BTW - Glad I found that post of yours! :-)